The present disclosure relates generally to medical devices and, more particularly, to the use of light focusing continuous wave emission in photo-acoustic spectroscopy to analyze vascular network.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In the field of medicine, doctors often desire to monitor certain physiological characteristics of their patients. Accordingly, a wide variety of devices have been developed for monitoring many such characteristics of a patient. Such devices provide doctors and other healthcare personnel with the information they need to provide the best possible healthcare for their patients. As a result, such monitoring devices have become an indispensable part of modern medicine.
Certain monitoring devices, for example, spectroscopy devices, are capable of measuring different physiological parameters, including oxygen saturation, hemoglobin, blood perfusion, and so forth. Spectroscopy devices typically irradiate a patient's tissue with a light. The irradiated region usually encompasses a wide array of blood vessels such as arterioles and capillaries. Absorbance data at known wavelengths of the irradiated light may then be analyzed to provide medical information representative of the physiological region of interest. However, spectroscopic devices may not able to evaluate precise regions of interest, such as individual blood vessels. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to develop systems and methods for monitoring very precise regions of interest, including individual blood vessels and other discrete vascular components.